Hitler's anti-semitism (paragraphs 6.3-9 above)

13.53 Irving having accepted that Hitler was profoundly anti-semitic until he came to power, the question is whether, as Irving claimed, he lost interest in anti-semitism from about 1933 onwards because it was no longer politically advantageous for him.

13.54 In his comprehensive and scholarly report, Longerich analysed the evidence of Hitler's anti-semitism both before and after 1933. He examined in particular Hitler's public pronouncements on the Jewish question. I have already set out in this judgment many of those statements. Ignoring for the moment the question whether Hitler was advocating the deportation of the Jews or their extermination, the argument appears to me to hopeless that after 1933 Hitler lost interest in anti-semitism or that he ceased to be anti-semitic when he came to power. Despite his increasing preoccupation with other matters, Hitler reverted time and again to the topic of the Jews and what was to be done with them. He continued to speak of them in terms which were both vitriolic and menacing. For the reasons which I have already expressed in the earlier paragraphs of this section of the judgment, I am satisfied on the evidence of his public statements that Hitler's anti-semitism continued unabated after 1933.

13.55 But account must also be taken not only of what Hitler said but also of what he did or authorised to be done or at least knew was being done in relation to the Jews. In the following paragraphs of this judgment I will summarise what appears to me to be the evidence of Hitler's involvement in the successive programmes of shooting, deporting and gassing Jews in large numbers. This evidence (which is in large part accepted by Irving) would in my view convince a dispassionate historian of Hitler's persistent anti-semitism. Even if (which I do not accept) the evidence supported the proposition that Hitler's policy towards the Jews remained throughout that they should be deported, it cannot in my view sensibly be argued that uprooting Jewish men, women and children from their homes and dumping them in often appalling conditions many miles away to the East was other than anti-semitic. I therefore reject as being contrary to the evidence Irving's claim that Hitler ceased to be anti-semitic from 1933 onwards.